


(not) All the Legends are True

by Accal1a



Series: Flash Bang #1 (Indigo Team) [21]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Cryptozoology, Exploration, F/M, Kissing, Monster Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 19:04:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: Jace takes Clary up on a bet about whether all the legends arereallytrue. Spoiler: They're really not.Square #20 - Cryptids





	(not) All the Legends are True

**Author's Note:**

> This fic just wouldn't _die_.

“So.” Clary said, walking into Jace's room.

“So.” Jace replied, moving towards her, putting an arm round her waist and pulling her into him.

Clary squeaked at the movement, but leant up to kiss her boyfriend nonetheless, after a welcome like that, she couldn't stop herself.

When they finally separated, they were both a little breathless. They carried on staring at each other's plump and kiss bitten lips, seemingly mesmerised for a few moments.

Clary shook her head to clear some of the fog that was just _Jace_.

“So, I did actually come in here for a reason.”

“Kissing me can't be the reason?” Jace said in a mock hurt tone of voice.

Clary's musical laugh echoed around the room 

“So, remember when I became a Shadow...”

“When you _found out_ you were a Shadowhunter. You didn't just become one, you always were one, it's...”

“Jace,” Clary said fondly, “shut up.”

Jace smiled at her, pulling her in close and giving her another kiss.

When they broke away from each other again, Clary pulled a book out of her pocket and handed it over to her boyfriend. 

Jace took the book, looking down at the title and reading it with incredulity. “'The Mysteries of Big Foot and other unexplained Phenomenon', what's this for?”

“I think we should test your 'All the Legends are True' theory.”

Jace scoffed at Clary, as if there was no way that his theory could possibly be wrong.

Clary raised an eyebrow at her boyfriend in direct challenge, and waited for him to take the bait. She was at least 90% sure that she was going to win the bet, but she was 100% sure that Jace wouldn't be able to back down from it.

“You're on, Fray.”

~~~

The first place they arrived at, Clary's portal rune being put to good use, was a wet and windy grassland and Jace immediately started complaining, pulling his jacket around himself.

“Where _are_ we?”

“England!” Clary said cheerfully, her own coat lovely and warm around her.

“And _why_ are we in this _field_?”

Clary could almost hear the air quotes that she knew Jace wanted to use, but apparently didn't think it was worth pulling his hands out of his pockets for.

Clary pulled the book out of her own pocket, opening it to a page that Jace could see was labelled '1' on a bookmark sticking out of the top.

“Beast of Bodmin Moor,” she read, “phantom big cat, purported to live in Cornwall.”

“You brought me somewhere to find a _cat_?” Jace said with some scorn.

Clary was not going to let him throw water on the situation, she had a plan and that plan was to get Jace to admit that he had been wrong. Jace might be stubborn, but that didn't mean she wasn't too. 

“I brought you to find a mythical beast called the 'Beast of Bodmin Moor'. All the legends are true, right?” Clary finished, knowing that would be the nail in the coffin.

“Okay, lets find the damn thing.” Jace said, and Clary smiled behind the book.

After 48 hours of fraught searching, including speaking with locals who thought it was cute that even more people were trying to find the beast, Jace was beyond grumpy.

Clary's self satisfied smirk did not help his mood, and when she presented him with a small figurine that she'd purchased from one of the curio shops that sold memorabilia about the myth, he stomped off on his own towards the moor muttering about 'finding that damn cat'.

When Clary caught up with her boyfriend, it was to see that he had his seraph blade out and was swatting it through gorse bushes, bushes that wouldn't even hide a domesticated house cat, let alone a panther sized creature.

“Next destination?” Clary asked.

“I'll pick this one.” Jace said, wondering whether his beautiful yet devious girlfriend had deliberately picked something that was untrue just to prove a point.

Clary shrugged and handed over the book. “Be my guest.”

Jace flicked through the book and then handed it back to his girlfriend. “Here.”

Clary nodded then created a portal. After a moment, they stepped through together, Jace feeling much better about things.

~~~

The climate that they ended up in was now hot and wet, which they both supposed was far better than the cold and wet of England.

The first thing that Clary noticed was the noise that was all around her as well as the colours. She wished she had her pencils with her because the jungle, with all its varying shades of green was nothing short of beautiful.

“Right. Let's find this thing,” Jace said, pulling his Stele and drawing a True North rune on to himself, “this way,” he finished, turning to his left and walking off, his seraph blade felling problematic jungle vines.

Clary walked after him, taking in the amazing sights and sounds. It was a very long way away from Brooklyn, and although she was loving it, she was still faintly aware that she might be killed by some scared animal, even if she was almost completely sure it wouldn't be the Dingonek.

After several hours of crashing through the undergrowth and searching any water way that they came across, Jace was cursing quietly under his breath, the sweat from the climate sticking his hair to his face in an unflattering way.

“Jace, do you want to...”

“It's _here_ , I can't feel it.” Jace said, seemingly picking a random direction and creating a path through yet more foliage.

Clary followed after him, wondering just when he was going to give up. She was tired and dehydrated and just wanted a soft bed and a good meal.

After another hour, she decided to call it.

“Jace. Look, we can chalk this one up to a draw.”

Jace looked ready to mutiny, so Clary quickly carried on speaking.

“If this thing does exist,” she raised a finger to stop Jace from interrupting her, “if this thing does exist it could be 6ft to our left and we _still_ wouldn't be able to find the damn thing if it didn't want to be found. This jungle is impenetrable in places. Let's go home.”

Jace conceded the point.

“Okay, but tomorrow we'll find something else.”

Clary nodded, then created the portal that would take them back to New York.

~~~

Clary was pretty sure her boyfriend hadn't slept.

When she arrived at his room, he was reading the book which she had meant as a bit of fun, and there was paper and post-its around him.

“Jace?”

He didn't immediately say anything, but then turned a few pages and then thrust the book out towards her.

“This one.”

Clary laughed. “Okay.”

When they arrived in Puerto Rico, Clary was once more overwhelmed by how beautiful the scenery was and once more annoyed with herself for forgetting to pack any drawing materials in her rucksack.

Jace didn't seem to care about the scenery at all, he just caught Clary's hand and dragged her into the jungle.

“This one is _definitely_ true,” he said frantically, and Clary wasn't sure whether he was talking himself into that statement or whether he truly believed it.

“Sure it is.”

“It is, there have been hundreds of sightings over the last 50 years, across several countries, livestock have _died_ , Clary.”

Clary rolled her eyes. Sure, because livestock never just died.

Jace did the same thing he'd done in the previous two places they'd searched. He got more and more fraught and stressed as the time went on, even going so far as to shout at a poor farmer who had a sighting back in 1985 but couldn't give any more details.

“Jace, it's getting late, let's go home.”

~~~

“You think that a giant sea otter exists?” Clary said, looking down at the page that Jace had shown her.

“I _think_ that we need to go somewhere where the residents speak English so that I can try and have a conversation. I need research, I need evidence. This one is possible.”

“Sure, Jace.” Clary said, hiding a grin as she turned to open the portal to Ireland.

It was exactly the same as the last few places they had been to. There was folklore about the creature, with several 'eye witness accounts', a tourist trap that sold knick knacks, and not much else.

“The last eye witness from this one was in the 17th century, Jace. Maybe it was true but it died out? Didn't that story include that man killing two of them? Maybe they were the only two?”

It was a half win, but at this point, Jace would take it.

“Possibly.” He replied, despondently kicking a stone at his feet.

~~~

“You know we can stop anytime you want, right?” Clary said the next day they had some time off.

“Not a chance.” Jace said, showing her another page.

Clary rolled her eyes fondly. She love him, and she loved spending time with him, but she did think her boyfriend was being rather ridiculous right now.

“At least this one is in the continental US. Actually we could even get the train down to this one.” Clary said, seeing the page for a creature called a 'Jersey Devil'.

“This one has got _tonnes_ of evidence,” Jace said, almost to himself, “can we portal? I want to get started on this.”

Clary laughed. “Sure.”

This one was somehow worse than all of the others combined. Jace seemed to be taking it as a personal affront, as if the fact it was on home soil should mean that he would get a pass.

“Do you really think that an incredibly fertile woman cursed her thirteenth child and the devil himself changed it into a hideous creature and it's been terrorising the area for the last 300 years?” Clary asked, exasperated after they'd traipsed through yet another reference section of a library, spoken to yet another town kook.

“It wouldn't be the strangest thing we've dealt with.” Jace shot back.

_Well, he had her there._

~~~

Weeks went past, and Clary thought the whole thing was over, until one morning when Jace ran into her room, clutching the book. She barely restrained the groan that was threatening to escape from her mouth.

“A real life dinosaur, Clary. A _dinosaur_!” Jace said, looking positively giddy with excitement.

“I don't think we're going to find a din...”

“This will all have been worth it if we find a dinosaur. Can we go now?”

Clary had never seen him this excited, not even when they'd said 'I love you' for the first time. She didn't know whether to be offended or not.

“What's this one called?” Clary asked. 

Jace hadn't let go of the book, snatching it back from Clary as soon as she'd seen the location that they needed to get to, but he didn't need the book to know what it was called. It was all he had thought about for _days_.

“Mokèlé-mbèmbé.”

Clary wanted to say 'God Bless you' but she didn't think her fragile boyfriend could cope with a joke like that right then.

One of the perks of being in the middle of nowhere meant that there were no incredibly kitschy shops about cryptozoology. The downside of that was that there were very people who they could ask about the creature.

They did eventually find a man who was willing to talk to them, who found the fact that two people were traipsing around without much kit hilarious. It was only halfway through the conversation that the young shadowhunters realised that they were being messed with. The man had the sight, he'd known who they were all along.

Clary found herself laughing along with the older man, even as Jace turned an alarming shade of puce.

“There are many legends of the beast. Many people go looking for it, but never find it.”

“Do you believe it exists?” Jace asked, turning back to the people who were no longer mocking him.

“I do. People I know and trust have seen it with their own two eyes. I believe it is real, even though I have never seen it.”

This seemed to embolden Jace, who threw himself into the quest with increased vigour. It was only when they had been searching for a full day that Clary stopped him.

“Jace, do you think we should just...”

“One more day. We'll find somewhere to sleep, and we can...just one more day, _please_?”

Clary agreed, purely because Jace Herondale rarely asked for anything for himself.

Despite overwhelming documentation spanning hundreds of years, with numerous sightings, they were unable to find anything. They didn't even find any track marks like some of the expeditions had found in the past.

“Let's go home.” Jace said, sadly.

Clary created the portal and then took Jace's hand so that they could step through together.

~~~

The day after the failed dinosaur mission, Clary found Jace in his room once more, this time the book just resting in his hands. Gone were the frantic scribblings and post it notes, gone were the bookmarks in the book itself. It was just a book, a dog-eared and battered book, but just a book nonetheless.

Clary wanted to be supportive. She really did, but she couldn't resist getting the final word.

“So, '(not) all the legends are true'?” Clary said, and Jace launched the book out of his open window.

“Apparently not.”

**Author's Note:**

> The monsters in this story are:  
> [Beast of Bodmin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_Bodmin_Moor)  
> [Dingonek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingonek)  
> [Chupacabra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra)  
> [Dobhar-chú](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobhar-ch%C3%BA)  
> [The Jersey Devil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil)  
> [Mokèlé-mbèmbé](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokele-mbembe)


End file.
